ILLUSTRATIONS. Plan of the Remains of the Grey Friars' Monastery, Great Yarmouth, and of the Walls of the Church of St. Francis Remains of the Greyfriars' Cloister, Great Yarmouth. Fragments of Statuary found on the Site of the Greyfriars' Sculptured Stone from Site of St. Vedast's Church, Norwich to face page 21 28 30 between pp. 198, 199 I.-Plan of Fye Bridge, Norwich, and the Neighbourhood to face p. 217 II.-Sectional Plan of the Locality in which the Piles were found III.-Sketches of Piles and Planks IV. Trench in River Bed at Fye Bridge. Patens at Narford and Lessingham Communion Cup and Cover, Reedham Flagon at Westacre Painted Table or Reredos of the Fourteenth Century, in the Cathedral Church of Norwich.-Plate I. The Ascension.-Plate VI. The Betrayal, from a painted Panel in the Church of St. The Crucifixion, from same.--Plate VIII. Ornamentation ---The Lyre to face page 343 Players in Norwich, from the Accession of Queen Elizabeth until their suppression in 1642. COMMUNICATED BY LEONARD G. BOLINGBROKE. 1 SOME two or three years since I contributed to the Transactions of our Society a paper on pre-Elizabethan players in Norfolk, in which, after referring to the dramatic ceremonies and plays which were wont to be performed in or about some of our Norfolk churches and monastic establishments during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries, I drew attention to the miracle plays and mysteries annually performed by the trade guilds of Norwich, Bungay, and other towns, upon Corpus Christi Day. In dealing with this part of my subject I perforce trespassed into the days of Queen Elizabeth, as the early years of her reign afford numerous instances of the religious dramas surviving from the pre-Elizabethan period. In the present paper, however, we will not stop to consider further the days, to use the words of a Norwich comedian of the last century, "When Parish Clerks In rhymes uncouth performed their Mysteries, The Articles of their Religion mocked, 1 Vol. xi., VOL. XIII.] 2 2 The Hospital, a poem by Joseph Wilde, comedian. B but will deal with the players who visited Norwich in the reign of Queen Elizabeth, and performed there the works of our first legitimate English dramatists. Although in the Elizabethan drama we gain greatly in point of literary excellence, we lose that local element which was so distinguishing a characteristic of the miracle plays. These latter were often the work of local writers, and were in many cases performed by amateur actors of the neighbourhood, but in the present paper we shall deal for the most part with companies of actors from London, performing the latest successes from the pens of the great writers of the period. We must not forget, however, that Norwich can claim Robert Greene,3 one of these great dramatic writers, as her son, while our local actors were not yet extinct, for on the 4th February, 1576, the whole company of the waytes of this city came into the Mayor's Court, and craved that they might have leave to play comedies, and open interludes, and such other plays and tragedies which should seem to them meet, which petition was granted to them by the whole consent of the Court, provided they did not play in the time of divine service and sermons. It would be beyond my subject to discuss the causes which produced so many fine dramas in response to the enthusiasm for the stage, but, I may say that nothing contributed more to the popularity of the drama than In his Repentance, Greene writes:-"I need not make long discourse of my parents, who for their gravity and honest life are well-known and esteemed amongst their neighbours, namely, in the City of Norwich, where I was bred and born." After leaving Cambridge, he travelled awhile in Spain, and Italy, and then settled for a time in London, where he lived a dissolute life. He must, however, have returned to his native city at least for a short time, as he writes "Once I felt a fear and horror in my conscience. This inward motion I received in St. Andrew's Church, in the City of Norwich, at a lecture or sermon, being new come from Italy. But this good motion lasted not long in me." Greene died in 1592. |